GBGH Telemedicine Program will be expanded to Monday to Friday 8am – 4pm

Services that can be accessed thru OTN Consult specialties include:

Cardiology, Dermatology, Diagnostic Radiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Family Medicine, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Geriatric Medicine, Gynecologic Oncology, Infectious Diseases, Internal Medicine, Hematology, Nephrology, Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopedic Surgery, Other: GP specializing in Pain Management, Other: Geriatric Psychiatry, Other: Refugee Care,Pediatric Cardiology, Pediatric Neurology, Pediatrics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Plastic Surgery, Psychiatry, Respirology, Rheumatology, Thoracic Surgery, Urology

About Your Telemedicine Visit

A telemedicine appointment is just like a regular appointment, only the specialist you will be seeing and speaking with is on a monitor. Free to residents of Ontario, OTN connects you with the right health care professional, in the right place, at the right time. The healthcare professional with you may assist with the examination, using tele-diagnostic equipment like a stethoscope, otoscope or patient examination camera. The specialist on the monitor can hear heart and breath sounds and look into your ear, nose and throat as if she were sitting in the same room.

Why should you talk to your doctor about OTN?

• to access a specialist from anywhere in Ontario in a timely manner.
• to receive care closer to your home.
• to reduce travel to appointments, saving time and money.

To learn more about GBGH OTN Services, visit https://gbgh.on.ca/programs-and-services/otn-ontario-telemedicine-network or

Contact:
Judy Sauve
Telemedicine Clinical Coordinator
Ontario Telehealth Network
705 526-1300 ext. 5479
SauveJ@gbgh.on.ca

Motherisk Commission Information Now Available Online

The Ontario government established the Motherisk Commission to review individual child protection cases and provide support for people who were affected by flawed hair testing done by the Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory at the Hospital for Sick Children. The independent review found that the hair strand drug and alcohol testing done by the laboratory was inadequate and unreliable for legal purposes.

The Commission is currently undertaking comprehensive outreach to organizations across the province, including hospitals. It is very important that the Commission get in touch with as many people as possible who may have been affected so that it can offer legal referral and counselling.

This information is time sensitive. The Commission is required to deliver its report at the end of 2017 and will be closing down shortly after. For those who seek counselling during the period of the operation of the Commission, counselling will continue for another year.

For more information, please contact Motherisk Commission at 1-844-303-5476 or visit www.motheriskcommission.ca.

GBGH First Baby of 2017

A Victoria Harbour family has been celebrating the new year in the best way possible – with the addition of a new little boy.
Just after 2 a.m. on January 4, Kristie Goldsmith, 33 and Jeff Dumont, 33, welcomed Cole Jeffrey John Dumont to the world – making him the first baby born at Georgian Bay General Hospital in 2017.

Weighing in at 8 pounds and two ounces, and measuring 21 inches long, Cole was just over a week late, noted mom, so she was quite surprised to when hospital staff – including on duty Labour and Delivery nurses Kim Eichenblat and Jessica Williams – informed her that they had the unique distinction of having the “New Year’s Baby”.

Kristie arrived at Georgian Bay General Hospital shortly after midnight, and the delivery went quickly and smoothly, she said, with Cole arriving at 2:03 a.m.

“I wanted to deliver in Midland. Dr. Helt is our family doctor and he delivered the baby as well,” she said. “The nurses were great and really helpful. I had a good experience there last time so I had no reason not to go back. Everyone is really nice and friendly and they really took care of me and Cole. I am very glad it it’s still open and that I had the chance to go there.” This is mom’s second child, and dad’s third, and both are adjusting extremely well to their new sibling.

“They’re very helpful and they love him – it’s been really good,” she said, adding life with a newborn has been going as smoothly as can be expected – although it will take some time to adjust to the middle of the night feeds again. “He’s doing really well. He sleeps well and eats well (and) he’s very content. He fits well in to our family, which has been nice since we’re already so busy with two other kids. (He) will be our last baby so we’re taking advantage of cuddling him and loving him as much as possible.”

Nearly two thirds of potential organ donors gave the gift of life

TORONTO January 27, 2017 – Today Trillium Gift of Life Network released new provincial data on hospital donation performance. Ontario is the only province to make this data publicly available – a practice that has led to higher donation rates in the province.

Hospital donation performance is measured by two rates: routine notification and conversion. Routine notification rate measures the frequency at which Trillium Gift of Life Network is notified by a hospital when there is potential for organ and/or tissue donation. Without this critical first step, precious life-saving opportunities are lost. The average provincial routine notification rate over the first two quarters of 2016/17 fiscal year (April 1 – September 30, 2016) was 95 per cent.

In the second quarter (July 1 – September 30, 2016), nine out of the 70 hospitals achieved a 100 per cent routine notification rate:

• Georgian Bay General Hospital (Midland, Ont.)
• Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (Ottawa, Ont.)
• Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance (Clinton, Ont., St Mary’s, Ont., Seaforth, Ont., Stratford, Ont.)
• Kirkland and District Hospital (Kirkland Lake, Ont.)
• Leamington District Memorial Hospital (Leamington, Ont.)
• Northumberland Hills Hospital (Cobourg, Ont.)
• Pembroke Regional Hospital (Pembroke, Ont.)
• Sault Area Hospital (Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.)
• University of Ottawa Heart Institute (Ottawa, Ont.)

The second measure, conversion rate, indicates the percentage of potential organ donors that became actual organ donors. Over the first two quarters of the 2016/17 fiscal year, the provincial conversion rate average was 60 per cent.

In the second quarter, 10 out of 56 hospitals achieved a 100 per cent conversion rate:

• Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (Ottawa, Ont.)
• Cornwall Community Hospital (Cornwall, Ont.)
• Hamilton Health Sciences (Hamilton, Ont.)
• Kingston General Hospital (Kingston, Ont.)
• London Health Sciences Centre (London, Ont.)
• Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto, Ont.)
• Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (Barrie, Ont.)
• St. Joseph’s Healthcare (Hamilton, Ont.)
• St. Mary’s General Hospital (Kitchener, Ont.)
• University of Ottawa Heart Institute (Ottawa, Ont.)

To see the data by hospital and region, visit: www.giftoflife.on.ca/en/publicreporting.htm.

CONTACT:
Jennifer Long
Media Relations Coordinator
416-619-2327
c. 647-526-6941
jlong@giftoflife.on.ca

Trillium Gift of Life Network is a not-for-profit agency of the Government of Ontario responsible for planning, promoting, coordinating and supporting organ and tissue donation for transplantation across Ontario and improving the system so that more lives can be saved.